In the midst of his country’s conflict with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that his country might soon withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits antipersonnel landmines.
He claimed on Sunday, “Russia never participated in this convention and uses antipersonnel mines with extreme cynicism.”
Not just a rhetorical flourish, this. As they retreated to kill the Ukrainian sappers who had discovered the bodies of their fallen comrades in August 2023, Russian soldiers used anti-personnel mines to booby-trap them.
Because “antipersonnel mines have very rarely no other option as a defense tool,” Ukraine needs to “even the battlefield,” Zelenskyy said.
What particular function do antipersonnel landmines serve? Why are they so prevalent in many nations? What will it be able to do in its own defense if Ukraine leaves the treaty right away?
The Ottawa Treaty is what, exactly?
The use of anti-personnel landmines is prohibited by the Ottawa Treaty of December 1997, as well as the right to “develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain, or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines.”
More than 160 nations have ratified the treaty, which is a component of the international legal system that is embodied in the UN. Its primary objective is to get rid of landmines, as its name suggests.
Although the US did agree to stop stockpiling antipersonnel landmines under President Barack Obama, a decision that his successor, Donald Trump, reversed, major powers like China, Russia, and the United States have never signed it.
Landmines are indiscriminate killers, so why is that justification for that?
Landmines stand out from other types of landmines because they can’t tell a soldier from a civilian, such as a woman or a child, once they have been sown, according to Jody Williams, who coordinated the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which resulted in the Ottawa Treaty.
When Williams accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, Williams said, “While the use of the weapon might be militarily justifiable on the day of the battle, … once peace is declared, the landmine does not recognize that peace.” The conflict is over. The landmine continues to kill.
Not the first weapons to be outlawed are they. Following World War I, the Geneva Convention of 1925 forbids the use of chemical substances because the Germans had caused horribly painful injuries by using chlorine gas.
Moscow has refuted Zelenskyy’s claim that Russia also violated the chemical weapons ban.
How can Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty aid its defense?
The use, production, and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines are prohibited by the treaty. The treaty was ratified in 2005 by Ukraine, and they have already been used again. The US provided landmines to Ukraine in November.
This was caused by a decrease in the use of mechanized armour and an increase in foot soldiers in Russia at the time.
They no longer operate with their mechanized forces. In a statement, former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained that they are in charge with dismounted forces who can close in and make maneuvers, which kind of opens the door for mechanized forces.
“So the Ukrainians are seeing that at this very moment. And they require things to “slow down” those efforts by the Russians.
Withdrawing the treaty will make it possible for Ukraine to mine land and stockpile it. The move suggests a more extensive and permanent purpose.
When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to retake control of large swaths of Russian-occupied territory in June 2023, the effectiveness of landmines became clear.
Russian defenders’ failure was primarily due to the formation of minefields that continued for several kilometers before their positions, as well as by their digging themselves into trenches.
Russian minefields “played a very important role” in halting the first Ukrainian advance, according to Russian Major General Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District.
Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s then-Military Committee, confirmed that mines had been a significant obstacle.
By July, Ukraine had abandoned its attempts to force mechanized columns through Russian defenses and concentrated on gradually putting down Russian defenders.
What justifies Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty?
The decision by Ukraine comes as a result of a string of ratifications of the treaty. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Baltic states, Latvia, and Poland all declared in March that they would withdraw from the agreement, claiming that the region’s security situation had “fundamentally deteriorated.”
Finland followed up the month to “a more versatile way to prepare for the changes in the security environment.”
All have a border with Russia, or with Kaliningrad, a Russian-enclave tucked between Poland and Lithuania in the Baltic Sea.
“A number of nations are already abstaining from the Ottawa Protocol to use these kinds of landmines.” Victoria Vdovychenko, a defense expert at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, said that this is typical.
She told Al Jazeera, “It means that these nations are putting their national security before using it in the context of potential warfare.”
Being a party to the Ottawa Treaty was a way for these nations to demonstrate their political credentials, according to Keir Giles, an expert on Eurasia at Chatham House, to join Western organizations like NATO and the European Union.
They were reluctant to do anything that didn’t make them the most forward-thinking, liberal, and progressive members of the club because they had to sign up to prove membership, he said.
According to Giles, “anyone who wanted to sign up to do what seemed right in the eyes of the global liberal elite would have done it regardless of whether it made long-term strategic sense,” and NATO was persuaded to do so because Russia would never become a problem again.
The departure of the Eastern European nations is related to NATO member states’ shared threat assessments.
NATO members were living in an “era where anything can happen at any time, an era in which we need to anticipate the unexpected, an era in which we need to focus on effectiveness,” according to NATO’s Bauer in January 2024.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated at the same time that a Russian attack on Germany was not in doubt. According to his assertion, “our experts anticipate that this could be possible over the next five to eight years.”
Other eastern NATO members have since stated that Russia is a security threat.
The increased Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odesa, are another factor in the timing.
That implied that Russia might be preparing to launch a ground conflict in Ukraine’s remotest regions, Vdovychenko said.
“We’re not talking about the front lines,” he said. We are actually talking about [rear] neighborhoods and even residential areas in Ukraine, not so much as red-line cities or communities, but actually yellow cities and communities, she told Al Jazeera.
